pencil drawing by Ray Patrick
A graphite study of a classical head turned and tipped back, eyes hooded, filling the whole sheet.
The head is cropped at every edge and sits on a strong diagonal, so the drawing has no upright anywhere in it. The dark ground is open at the left and closes behind the neck at the right.
Graphite on white, from a near-black ground down to bare paper on the brow, the bridge of the nose and the lower lip.
Worked almost entirely in flat angular planes laid with the side of the lead, with the hardest edges reserved for where the light turns — the nostril, the lip, the line of the jaw. Nothing is blended into roundness.
Graphite on paper.
No signature visible within the drawn area.